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A spring graduate of Centre High School, she already has been accepted at Kansas City Art Institute, where she will study illustration and graphic design. However, she is delaying admission to spend more time with her family and earn money to cover what financial aid won’t pay.

“Our family is really close,” her mother, Amy, said. “My mom and dad and I are always together.”

Tabatha was the only granddaughter for a while and got a lot of special attention from her grandparents and her uncles, Billy and Tim Olsen.

“It’s just me and her, “Amy said. “When she leaves, it is going to make a big difference. I will probably visit every other weekend.”

Amy wants her daughter to have a chance to develop interpersonal skills more before she leaves for college.

She also is looking for a job to help cover college expenses.

“I tried to get her to work with me here at Carlsons’,” Amy said. “I thought it might be good for her because she would get more of a chance to interact with people she does not know.”

Tabatha’s interests led her to consider a big-city school.

“It’s hard for Tabatha to find what she wants in a small town,” Amy said. “She’s interested in voice acting and she is really good with computers. She’s always drawing things and scanning them into the computer.”

Family ties also are important for another recent Centre High School graduate.

Carrie Carlson is the youngest of three sisters. While her parents, Duane and Karen, are going to miss her, they know she is ready for her next journey in life: college.

“She will only be an hour away,” her mother, Karen said. “It will be a good opportunity for her to meet new people and do new things.”

Carrie will be staying in an all-girls dorm at Kansas State University. She will have three roommates she has never met.

“She has been talking to one on the phone,” Karen said. “That one is a friend of her friend.”

Carrie is outgoing. She is state FFA vice president and this week is attending an FFA leadership conference in Washington D.C.

Carrie also has received several scholarships from FFA, K-State, and other local sources.

“Both her sisters went to Southwestern College and tried to get her to go,” Karen said. “But Carrie’s interest in ag and bakery science led her to K-State. We wanted it to be her decision.”

Karen said she and Duane had not given Carrie any special advice for college. However, they have been preparing her all her life.

“If she has questions about anything, she just asks her sisters,” Karen said.